Northwest announced today that it, too, will begin charging passengers $25 when they check a second piece of luggage. No shocker, really, but the news does solidify the second bag charge as more than a mere trend among old-guard airlines. Northwest Airlines joins United Airlines, British Airways, Spirit Airlines (only charges $10), Delta Airlines and US Airways, proving that the practice is fast becoming the standard. American Airlines has yet to instate the second bag fee, but we’d be surprised if the airline held out for much longer.

While I do think that this new standard is an interesting development in the travel world, I can’t say I remember the last time I checked more than one bag. Frankly, I don’t like to travel with more stuff than I can comfortably carry on my own. But the people this will no doubt hurt the most are families traveling long distances for leisure trips of one week or more. One thing I will say is that checking a second bag, in most cases, is still cheaper than stuffing everything into one bag and having to pay an overweight baggage charge (those are usually $50 and up).

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 6:14 pm and is filed under Air Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.